Kali Kopae and Jamie McCaskill in 'He reo aroha'Do Tawata have a hot-line to beau­ti­ful? This is the second pro­duc­tion I’ve seen from them in as many weeks that has opened my heart and lif­ted my mood. He reo aroha has been around for a few years now, tour­ing New Zea­l­and and the world. It keeps to a min­im­al aes­thet­ic – a couple of chairs, some gui­tar stands and cases. The focus is all on the per­formers Kali Kopae and Jam­ie McCaskill. They are won­der­ful to watch and listen to.

The story is that Kaia (Kopae) and Pas­coe (McCaskill) grew up togeth­er in the tiny town of Ti Kapa. They fall in love but Kaia, want­ing to make a liv­ing as a sing­er, leaves Ti Kapa and Pas­coe for the bright lights of New York.  Pas­coe, heart­broken, throws him­self into his work, even­tu­ally sav­ing enough money to buy a fish­ing boat. After two and a half years they are reunited…or are they?

Songs are threaded through the pro­duc­tion, as per­form­ance, incant­a­tion, lament, and cel­eb­ra­tion. Kopae and McCaskill play mul­tiple char­ac­ters. (They also sing as dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters.) Both estab­lish a rela­tion­ship with the audi­ence that has us in fits of laughter one second and close to tears the next.

A note:  The fan­zone is pretty close to the theatre so you may have to close your ears to what is going on out­side. With such enga­ging per­form­ances it’s easy.